scenes from a revolution
by flufflybunny
Summary: Or, four times Haymitch Abernathy did something good.


**scenes from a revolution**  
or, **four times haymitch abernathy did something good.  
**haymitch abernathy (+ maysilee donner, finnick odair, cinna, peeta mellark)  
**pg**; swearing + mentions of general unpleasantness

_one. _**maysilee.**

The night before they go into the arena, Maysilee Donner sits on the end of his bed, wearing a pale pink dress and a lost, soft expression. "Haymitch," she says.

He knows her mother. He knows her little sister. When they were younger they'd play in the snow together, shove snowballs down each other's shirts and roll in the white softness, not caring they were soaked to the skin.

Tomorrow he is going to be out there to try and kill her. This is so fucked up-- fucked up doesn't even begin to touch how much damage is going down.

"Maysilee," he replies. "You should get some rest."

She bites her lip. "You think that's going to matter? Haymitch, I'm--"

"Quick," he says, "resourceful. Smart. Do what you have to do, is what I'm saying. You'll manage."

"I'm going to die," she tells him. Her voice cracks. "God, Haymitch. Tell my mom I love her, okay? Tell my sister and my dad."

He sits up, because it's _Maysilee Donner_ and it may be the night before but they will not take his humanity from him, not faced with a little girl who is going to die. He puts his hand on her shoulder, tugs her into a hug. Her hair falls blonde across his back. "Okay," he says. He doesn't say, _what makes you think I'll make it out_, because this is not about him, not right now.

She sniffles, cheek pressed against the side of his neck. "You know," she says, pulling back, eyes red, "back in the District, I had the biggest crush on you."

He kisses her forehead, smoothes away the sticky blonde strands. "You need to drink some water, for tomorrow. They might not let us have any. They probably won't."

Maysilee Donner looks at him with canny, weary, _sad_ blue eyes. "How long do you think I'll last?" she asks him. "Two days, maybe, if I'm lucky. Water's the least of my problems."

He shakes his head. "Maysilee-- please." There's a pitcher on the table by his bed, and one glass. He pours some water for her.

She shrugs, takes it, drinking very slowly, pressed tight against his side. Her legs are crossed underneath her. He can feel the warmth of her seeping through his shirt.

"This is the night before," he observes. "They tell us to do practical things. To sleep."

"I'm not going to last," she tells him, gathering herself visibly, drawing up her shoulders and breathing in deep. "But you might. And I just want you to remember that you're a person, okay. That no matter what warped fucked up things that arena makes you do, you're still Haymitch Abernathy, the guy that Maysilee Donner had a crush on when she was twelve."

He doesn't know what to do. He says, "Do you remember when we were kids, and we'd play in the snow? There was one year we built a giant snow mound underneath a tree and tried to jump out of it."

"Yeah," she says, grinning, "you missed. You landed on your nose. It was bleeding for the rest of the day, but you refused to go inside and get a bandage 'cause you knew they wouldn't let you out again." She slips his hand in his, squeezes. "You big hero, you." Her voice trembles, a little. She's shaking.

"That's me," he says, letting a little of the bitterness seep into his voice. "Capable of doing absolutely nothing."

"You know," she says, almost conversational, "they kill us because it's the last line. You want to subjugate beyond belief, you kill children. You force children to kill each other."

"They're sons of bitches," he says.

"Yeah," she says, slowly, thoughtfully, "but you only cross those lines when you've got nothing left."

He says, "I wonder if any of the others can sleep." He thinks about cameras, about bugs that are in his bedroom and hers. He feels cold certainty chill through his veins; Maysilee Donner is going to die for this, and a host of other things, starting with _girl _and _undernourished__and__academic__ and ending with __capable of inciting revolution_. He closes his eyes.

She shakes her head. "One of the girls from District Eight is gonna pray all night."

"The skinny one?" he asks, and feels sick; she'll be weaker, from the start. "We're way past praying for."

"That's what _I_said," Maysilee tells him. Her fingers are calloused; her fingernails are ripped and torn even though there was a manicure put on them this morning. "Can I stay here tonight?"

He should say _no_. He should tell her to go back to bed, to stare at her own empty ceiling and drink water steadily.

He couldn't sleep anyway. He stares at the join of their hands, Seam-skin against Seam-skin. "Yeah," he says. "Just don't tell anyone you did."

--

_two. _**finnick.**

Finnick Odair is the kind of boy grown men wish they'd been; tall and blond and ridiculously beautiful, and also deadly. Fourteen years old, having won the games? There's not a lot more fucked up you can get.

He makes Haymitch need a stiff drink; the way the rich and powerful of the Capitol look at him send shivers up Haymitch's spine.

"You really are insanely good looking," Haymitch observes. "But you're, you know, fourteen."

Finnick shrugs. He is wearing something shimmering and sea-green. "They don't seem to care."

"Yeah," Haymitch says. He rubs at his forehead. "You all right?"

"Yeah," Finnick says, acerbic. "Peachy." The set of his mouth is quietly unhappy.

Around them, the party whirls; social connections forged and shattered in the time it takes to sip something electric blue and sparkling.

It's Haymitch's turn to talk to the new victor: they try and stay close together, in case for whatever reason, they're needed. Finnick's mentor is a friend. "We can slip out in a couple minutes," he tells Finnick. "You want a drink?"

"I'm fourteen," Finnick tells him, no emotion behind it; just a statement of fact. Haymitch thinks he might be flattered, that the boy's turned off the charm for him.

"And how many people have you killed?" Haymitch asks, for the flinch. "I was kind of drunk, I think I missed the highlights."

Finnick closes his eyes. "I would like that," he tells Haymitch, clipped and crisp. "Thank you for the offer."

"See," Haymitch says, brightly, "when you've killed people, nothing else is big anymore."

::

"You make me want to drink," Haymitch tells Finnick, sitting opposite him, in an armchair that's ridiculously comfortable. "That's not really a reflection on you, a stiff wind makes me want to drink."

"Do I make you _actually_ drink?" Finnick asks. "I think that's probably more interesting."

Haymitch raises an eyebrow. "Kitten's got claws." He is kind of an asshole. He thinks he's earned it.

Finnick looks into the swirling glass of brandy, takes a little sip. "This is gross," he tells Haymitch, downing the rest of it with a grimace. "Refill?"

Haymitch sculls the rest of his glass, and tosses it to the floor. He takes a swallow straight out of the bottle, and passes it over. "This is four hundred dollar alcohol," he tells Finnick, conversationally. "Welcome to the high life."

"Why are you talking to me?" Finnick asks. He closes his eyes, swallows, puts the bottle on the table between them. "The kids from your District--"

"Never stood a chance," Haymitch says. It hurts when he says it, so he drinks a little more. "They knew it, I knew it. I sent their parents fruit baskets."

"You didn't," Finnick says, taking the bottle back.

"No," Haymitch says, wryly, "I didn't." He does his best Capitol-reporter impersonation. "You know, Finnick Odair, you now belong to the most exclusive club in Panem. How does that make you feel?"

"Fucking terrible," Finnick says, snaps. "I knew their _names_."

"You were a Career," Haymitch responds. "You wanted this."

"There's nothing that can prepare you for it," Finnick says. "You know that." His eyes are incredibly blue. "You know that no one ever wants this."

"Yeah," Haymitch says. "That's why I offered you a drink. 'Cause we're all young. 'Cause our lives aren't this. If they let these games ruin us, then they've won."

Finnick laughs, hollow and empty. "You think there's any way they haven't won?"

The alcohol burns down Haymitch's throat. "Yeah," he says. "You and me are having a drink."

--

_three. _**cinna.**

The night after the 73rd hunger games kick off, a slender man with pale orange hair knocks on Haymitch's door. "Hi," he says, "I'm Cinna."

Haymitch is very drunk. Both of his tributes went in the initial bloodbath; it's not unheard of but it's one of the worse results he's had. He liked them, inasmuch as he likes anyone, when he can't really see their faces 'cause of the blurring. They were good kids; terrified out of their minds, but good kids, nonetheless. "M'Haymitch," he slurs, stepping aside.

Cinna toes off his shoes at the door, leaves them neatly beside the threshold. "I'm sorry about your kids."

Haymitch shakes his head. "Who the fuck are you?" he asks.

"Your new stylist," Cinna says, crisply, sliding past Haymitch to sit on his couch. "Your last one was criminally useless."

Haymitch shrugs. "District Twelve," he says. "We never amount to anything." There's a bottle of something expensive in his hand. It tastes like piss, but it burns on the way down so he doesn't care.

"Your tributes," Cinna says, very clearly, each syllable enunciated, "deserved better than what they got."

"You're from the Capitol," Haymitch says, indignant because he's drunk and that's when he can forget to give a damn about protocol. "Where do you get off-"

Cinna's eyelashes are bright red. When he closes his eyes they fan out, brilliant, against his skin. "I am very good," he tells Haymitch, "and next year, your District is going to _win_."

"I think we have a stylist," Haymitch says. his reflexes are dull, sluggish. That's okay; he doesn't need them. His brain works too fast, anyway. "Two, actually. They're shit."

"Yeah," Cinna says. His voice is cold like a frosty morning. "Not for long. I need your word you'll co-operate with me."

"Ask me closer," Haymitch says. "Ask me when I know them."

Cinna's fingers are cool and dry. They brush over Haymitch's, as he pulls the bottle out of Haymitch's hand and puts it on the table beside them. "I'm asking you now," he tells Haymitch. "Now, when you feel it. What it's like to lose."

"You're a manipulative son of a bitch," Haymitch says.

"I want to win," Cinna says. "I want to do something decent."

"This isn't," Haymitch starts, "this isn't your own private redemption. These are _children__._"

"You think I don't know that?" Cinna bites out. "I'm _good_, Haymitch. I'm _very_ good."

Haymitch squints at him. He wonders what Cinna's original eye colour, hair colour might have been. He guesses it doesn't matter; this is the Capitol, after all. Appearances are exactly what you are. "Shake on it," he tells Cinna.

"I'll do you one better," Cinna says sharply, surging forward to kiss him, hot and wet and full of promise. "Do we have a deal?"

Haymitch breathes out, laughs a little into the curve of Cinna's mouth. "Sure," he says, swaying on his feet. "Sure."

They sit side by side, on Haymitch's Capitol-sent white couch, and watch the Games.

Haymitch is almost tempted to change the channel.

_four. **peeta.  
**_

Looking at Peeta Mellark is like looking at a kitten or something equally helpless; for all that Haymitch has seen him kill, has seen what he's capable of in that arena, Finnick is right. Peeta Mellark is the universe's idea of irony; a truly good person who's won the Games. There's an innocence to him, despite everything; a truth and a purity that makes Haymitch either want to save him or to kill him, right now. They're both the same thing, in the end.

Peeta's hands are folded neatly on his lap, and his eyes are narrowed. "Haymitch," he says, soft, precise. "You're going to help me."

Haymitch breathes in, deep. For the first time in a week, his mouth doesn't taste like alcohol. "Yeah," he says. It sounds like giving up, but unlike Peeta, Haymitch has always been open to the easy option. (He thinks of Maysilee, thinks of the way he told her that they weren't worth praying for, the way her body fell on the ground, the colour of her blood.) "I am."

Peeta blinks. "You aren't even trying to talk me out of it?"

"You think it would do anything?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. "Peeta Mellark, you're in love with this girl. Nothing I say is going to make you change your mind."

"And," Peeta says, carefully, "you need her. She's the mockingjay."

Haymitch looks away from the brightness of his eyes, from the love that's settled in the back of that gaze, the love that's paired with grave inevitability. "She doesn't love you," he says, because maybe he lied, maybe he does need to try. Because maybe Peeta has always been his favourite.

Peeta grins, wry and sweet. "You think that matters?"

"No," Haymitch says, sighing. "You were always my favourite."

"I know," Peeta says. "I'm sorry, if that helps. If I could change this, I--"

"Wouldn't be you," Haymitch says, shrugs. His voice sounds bitter and caustic to his own ears. "I'll help you. But if you can-- save your own ass if you can, all right? Don't be a martyr."

Peeta raises his own eyebrow. "I thought was the whole point of me."

"God," Haymitch says, "I need a drink."

He doesn't move.


End file.
